The piano-rocker’s performance was part of the Nashville Symphony’s Young People’s Concert series, offered free to all to public, private and home school students. It was an ideally open crowd for Folds’ new concerto - a 20-minute piece filled with sonic twists and surreal surprises. It includes a definite first for the Symphony: halfway through the piece, the musicians pull out their cellphones and trigger their ringtones.

After a Q&A session with the students in attendance, Folds brought us backstage for a quick chat about putting his concerto together (which took him a full year), why he's not worried about the smartphone generation, and why he likes to be "a little bit frightened" when choosing the next chapter in his career.

Nashville record store Grimey’s is among the venues nationwide hosting watch parties.

Last year’s announcement host, Weird Al Yankovic, ended up on that’s year’s Bonnaroo bill, but we’ll have to wait and see if Killam and company will be part of this year’s fest, taking place June 12-15. Ticket info is “coming soon” according to Bonnaroo.

Cartoonist and children’s book author Sandra Boynton didn’t realize that making a country music album in Nashville would be “this hard.”

Boynton has recorded four other albums — three of which are gold — and illustrated books to accompany the recordings. They feature the same whimsical critter caricatures made famous in books such as “Moo, Baa, La La La!” and “Barnyard Dance.”

Having written more than 50 children’s books with more than 60 million copies sold, she thought that her track record would speak for itself and that she would have no problem persuading A-list singers to hop on her album. She was wrong.

But she persevered. “Frog Trouble and Eleven Other Pretty Serious Songs” will be in stores Sept. 3. The album, which Boynton hopes will be enjoyed by “ages 1 to older than dirt,” features artists including Brad Paisley, Dwight Yoakam, Alison Krauss, Josh Turner, Kacey Musgraves, Ryan Adams and Darius Rucker.

“I hope it doesn’t just get relegated to, ‘Oh, it’s a cute kids’ album, because I mean for it to be a good children’s album, but I actually mean for it to be for everyone,” says Boynton, a 60-year-old mother of four originally from Philadelphia. “People can think you’re delusional in a way, like you don’t know where your place is, but I think I’m right. I think it is potentially a broader appeal.”

The album contains 12 original songs written by the author and was recorded in Nashville over the last two years. Boynton says she heard Turner’s voice as she was writing “Alligator Stroll” and wanted to have a low voice singing the lyrics.

“Most people haven’t heard the sound an alligator makes, but it’s really low, it’s a lot lower than people can actually hear so it made sense when she contacted me,” Turner jokes. “Absolutely, I sound most like an alligator.”

While Boynton says she is “giddy” hearing Turner’s voice on her lyrics, she admits she was initially apprehensive about making a country album because her current hometown of Philadelphia isn’t known for being a “traditional country music area.”

“I was already a fan of Josh’s and Brad Paisley and I ended up asking the people I most loved,” she says. “It just seemed exactly the right place to go and it was even a righter place to go than I knew.”

click to see a slide show of The Nashville Symphony.The Nashville Symphony's 2013-2014 season includes Ben Folds, Chicago, and Amy Grant and Vince Gill.

By Jessica Bliss

The Tennessean

With the announcement of its 2013-2014 season, the Nashville Symphony again showcases its desire to combine classic compositions with contemporary concertos and make the most of its creative surroundings.

But more than that, the upcoming season’s lineup, which includes Ben Folds, Amy Grant and Vince Gill, is one carefully culled with the specific goal of buoying the symphony’s financial viability.

The symphony has enough cash for operations for the “foreseeable future,” Nashville Symphony President and CEO Alan Valentine said, and it will continue to perform with the goal of presenting an appealing season aimed at increasing ticket sales and revenue.

Nashville a cappella group The Collective on 'The Sing-Off' (photo: Mitchell Haaseth/NBC)

Nearly one year after Nashville area rock/pop star Ben Folds and his fellow judges rallied fans to save "The Sing-Off" comes news that NBC is reviving the televised singing competition for a fourth season.

Ben Folds (photo: Samuel M. Simpkins/The Tennessean)

The show - which featured Folds as a judge along with singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles and Boyz II Men's Shawn Stockman - ran for three years and has been off the air since November of 2011. The competition is exclusively for acapella singing groups and featured a number of Nashville talents over the years, including local songsmith Jeremy Lister and Jack White bandmate Ruby Amanfu.

More local singers may get a chance to shine in season four, as the show will hold auditions in Nashville on May 4 at S.I.R. Studios (1101 Cherry Ave.). Doors open at 9 a.m., and participants are required to register at www.singoffcasting.com.

There's currently no word on when the fourth season will air - the show's official site says "Coming Soon." Folds will likely once again have a role, as he tweeted the news on Thursday along with a link to audition info.

Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar poses with award-winning actor William Shatner at the 2009 Nashville Film Festival held on Friday, April 17, 2009. (L-R) Ben Folds, Henry Juszkiewicz, William Shatner, and Mindy Lawson

The one and only William Shatner is resting up for the holidays before he heads back out on the road in January with his "Shatner's World Tour," which will stop at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on January 12. Music City is one of thirteen cities the star will briefly visit next month.

"You never see the city," Shatner tells the Tennessean. "The whole effort is getting to the venue, getting there on time and making sure everything’s working - including your legs!"

Hopefully the man behind Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker and more will have time to see some of his numerous Nashville friends, including Brad Paisley, Scott Hamilton and Ben Folds, who gave Shatner a grand tour of the town when he produced his 2004 album "Has Been."

Shatner says that more music is on the way - in fact, our interview came in the middle of a songwriting session - and that having some Music City pals involved is "something I would like very much."

"It’s an ambitious piece and I’ve just started work on it, so we’ll see what happens. But somebody wants me to do an album, so I’m taking them up on it.”

Shatner brings his one-man show, "Shatner's World," to TPAC'S Andrew Jackson Hall on January 12. Tickets are $25-$75, on sale at www.tpac.org.

The recently reunited Ben Folds Five - featuring local piano popsmith Ben Folds - will perform in Nashville for the first time in more than a decade on September 17, when the trio's U.S. tour comes to the Ryman Auditorium.

The Nashville concert comes just one day before the release of "The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind," the band's first studio album in 13 years. "Mind" was recorded in Nashville and will be released via ImaVeePee Records/Sony Music Entertainment.

Tickets are $39.50 - $55.50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Fri., July 27 at the Ryman box office, ryman.com, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com, or by calling 1-800-745-3000.

The Civil Wars play on Sunday at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. (John Partipilo/The Tennessean)

The Beach Boys weren't the only reunited act being celebrated at Bonnaroo. Ben Folds Five - the misleadingly named trio led by Nashville singer-songwriter Ben Folds - took the Bonnaroo stage for the first time on Sunday afternoon.

The group has reconvened for their first concert tour in 12 years, and as Folds mentioned onstage, are wrapping up work on a new studio album in Nashville, so the crowd of lifelong fans were treated to a set of old favorites from the group's first three albums, including their hit ballad "Brick."

"I love playing this festival,"said Folds, who's performed at Bonnaroo as a solo artist. "It's a real music festival."

The Sunday rain didn't appear to send many Bonnarooers home early. As Bon Iver and The Shins commanded crowds on Sunday, so did folk-pop duo The Civil Wars - featuring Nashville singer-songwriter Joy Williams, who's expecting her first child later this month. The duo routinely sells out shows in Music City, and clearly has a pull throughout the rest of the country.